“The Impossible Escape. The Political Prison for Women in Miercurea Ciuc 1957-1961” by Lena Constante – resistance and remembrance

How to fight against the annihilation of oneself in an oppressive regime? How to survive physically and spiritually for lack of activity in an overcrowded cell? How to fill time, day after day, long years before liberation? The book of memoirs of the Romanian writer Lena Constante, The Impossible Escape (1993), comes from the experience of four years in communist political prisons (1957-1961) – after a false trial brought by the authorities of the time against a former minister. Conceived as a mental diary, this book extracts from oblivion the various modalities of making run the 17 hours of the day when she and her numerous comrades were forced to remain standing without doing anything.